


Worthy Exchange

by YaeL (thesometimeswarrior)



Category: Jewish Scripture & Legend, מדרש | Midrash, תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Ficlet, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship, Parshat Shemot, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29637021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/YaeL
Summary: Moses flees Egypt.What right does Yocheved have to worry about him now?
Relationships: Moshe | Moses | Musa & Yocheved | Jochebed (Abrahamic Religions)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 11
Collections: All Your Faves Are Jewish, Purimgifts 2021





	Worthy Exchange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy!

By the standards of an Egyptian slave, she’s an old woman when it happens, and it’s Aaron who informs her. She would have found out anyway, soon after, with the rest of the women, but because her son—her _eldest_ son—works at the same site at which the incident occurred, she learns of it almost at once. Aaron sprints back to Goshen as soon as his foreman releases the slaves, and relates the whole story, barely stopping to catch his breath. 

“They’re going to kill him,” he rasps. “He murdered an Egyptian foreman, and they’re going to kill him!”

“They won’t,” Yocheved murmurs, reaching gently for her child’s blistered hand. Relief and regret pang in her heart in equal measure. “To them, he’s a prince. What does Pharaoh care if a prince murders a lowly foreman? He’s safe, Aaron, he’s protected…”

And he is. She knows he is, at least in Egypt. If not by the God that Sabba Jacob used to swear he spoke to, then at least by the standards of the society that enslaved her. The society, that with a combination of her own conniving and either divine intervention or dumb luck has privileged her son as royalty.

But then the news reaches the Hebrews that Prince Moses has disappeared from the kingdom, which Yocheved takes to mean that fled into the wilderness—because if he were dead, soldiers would have already stormed Goshen looking for someone to blame—and then there is nothing left to protect him but a God she’s not sure she believes in.

She supposes that he’s no worse off now than he was as an infant, when she initially sent him adrift. Her children—her _remaining_ children—imagine that casting off as an act of great faith on her part. They were children themselves, of course, and stood next to her as she let the basket go, and that must have colored their perception of her decision. And no doubt if their world were different, if it were safe for them to spread the story around Goshen, they would tell it widely, and when they did would paint her as a great devotee to both her son and to God. And she would likely nod along, because her people are put down, and this is the sort of legendary faith that inspires hope in the midst of despair, that allows individuals to stay human when everything else around them would make them passive objects in their own lives. Yes, she would let Aaron and Miriam sing their fantastical tale. 

But it would be a lie. It wasn’t faith at all but _cowardice_ that prompted her on that terrible day. A refusal to watch, when a better mother might have. She hadn’t anticipated his survival in either case. 

So what right does she have _now_ to worry about Moses? Hadn’t that ship sailed down the Nile and beyond the reeds long ago? And, besides Moses isn’t a child anymore—even a prince would know how to survive beyond the palace and city walls, surely.

And if she never sees him again, even from a distance...well, that was the worthwhile exchange she made long ago.

It doesn’t mean she won’t regret it though. And, just before she feels tears begin to flow down her cheeks like Nile River waters, she whispers pleading words to that same absent God she spoke of, once upon a time, to her son, as she held him to her breast to suckle.

**Author's Note:**

> _Sunset Over the Nile River_
> 
> \--
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! I love comments!


End file.
